Warner Bros. Games / Them
J.K. Rowling may have spent her literary career making up words like “accio” and “muggle,” but there’s one word that really seems to grind her gears: “pronouns.”
Players of the brand-new video game Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, released for consoles and PC this week by Warner Bros. Games, can do much more than fly on broomsticks and catch snitches. As multiple people who have downloaded the title have confirmed on X, the game allows players to select they/them pronouns for the characters they create as part of their team in the mixed-gender sport. You can see the pronoun selection in a video uploaded to YouTube by user GuidingLight.
“Somewhere in a mouldy shack in Edinburgh, a lone scream rings out,” one Twitter user wrote, referencing the viral photo of J.K. Rowling’s wallpaper, which included black splotches that many speculated could be mold.
https://twitter.com/JordanMiddler/status/1830935639472115729
Another user invited Rowling to “cope and seethe” over the inclusive language.
https://twitter.com/ianlovesfilm/status/1831192923964059782
Them was able to test out the character creator by creating our very own nonbinary quidditch chaser below, who has silver hair and uses they/them pronouns.
Warner Bros. Games / Them
In 2023’s highly-anticipated Hogwarts Legacy, players could not select pronouns, but the main character was referred to by “they” or “them” pronouns in cutscenes to accommodate players who chose to play as either male or female. (Yes, even this angered some people.)
Legacy also featured the Potter universe’s first trans character, a witchy barkeep — in Bushwick, we call them tarot-reading DJs — named Sirona Ryan. Sirona, an NPC in Hogsmeade, didn’t identify herself as trans in the game, but did tell players that it took her classmates “a second to realize I was actually a witch, not a wizard.”
The ability to select pronouns in video games has caused plenty of controversy in the gaming world before. In September 2023 when Bethesda released its space RPG Starfield, YouTuber HeelsvsBabyFace went megaviral for a rant in which he blew his top, accusing the video game company of inserting woke ideology into the gaming world.
As usual, it’s safe to assume that Rowling stands to earn money from anything related to the Potterverse. Newsweek estimates that Rowling makes anywhere from $50-$100 million per year in passive income from her intellectual property. But it’s the game’s own website that, in its FAQs, asks the question on everybody’s mind: “Are Portkey Games created with J.K. Rowling’s approval?”
“Each experience offered under Portkey Games will take place in the wizarding world and will be authentic to it,” the site reads. “J.K. Rowling is hugely supportive of Portkey Games and has entrusted the design and creation of the games to WB Games and the developers involved.”
